Decoding the letter E
|IPA phoneme \ \|dress /dr s/}} The letter E (lowercase e', pronounced '/iː/), as most vowel letters in English, has four main pronunciations: *So-called “short e”, IPA phoneme / /, as in dress, get, getting, second or merry *So-called “long e”, IPA phoneme /iː/, as in he, region or scene *Long "er" monophtong (short vowel spelling), IPA phoneme /ɜː/, as in term, def'e'r'' or ''def'e'rred *Long "er" diphthong (long vowel spelling), IPA phoneme /ɪə/, as in here or period It also can be pronounced /ɪ/ as in b'''e'lieve'' — plus other, less common pronunciations, sometimes in combination with other letters, and, of course, it can be used as schwa. Its use as a final, silent e should also be pointed out. Plus the two pronunciations of the English definite article, the (usually, /ðiː/ before a vowel sound and /ðə/ before a consonant sound). As /iː/ See main article IPA phoneme /iː/ See also So-called “long e” * at end: be, he, me, she, we * as stressed syllable: * with magic e: athlete, Chinese, compete, complete, concede, concrete, extreme, Japanese, Lebanese, Portuguese, scene, Steve, theme, these *Plurals of Greek words: analyses, crises, oases, theses *Male Greek names: Achilles /əˈkɪliːz/, Archimedes /ˌɑːrkəˈmiːdiːz/, Diogenes /daɪˈɒdʒəniːz/, Hercules Sophocles /ˈsɒfəkliːz/, Ulysses /ˈjuːlɪsiːz, juːˈlɪsiːz / As / / See main article IPA phoneme / / See also So-called “short e” and Word stress § The letter e *ending in e'' + consonants: *eCV: b'e'nefit, credit, dev'e'lopment, el'e'ven, '''e'loquence, e'very, '''e'vidence, exit, g'e'''neral, l'e'vel, n'e'ver, pr'e'sent, pr'e'sident, second, special, sev'e'ral, very *other: b'e'tter, c'e'nter, '''e'dge, 'e'lse, 'e'nter, 'e'ntrance, envy, identity, inv'e'''stment, l'e'tter, m'e'mber, question, section, s'e'ntence, tog'e'ther, wh'e'ther As /ɪ/ ''See main article IPA phoneme /ɪ/ *As a stressed syllable: England, English, pretty *As an initial unstressed syllable, especially, but not exclusively, in two-syllable verbs: :*verbs: believe, defeat, defend, receive, rehearse, release, repeat, respect, retrieve :*others: defence, eleven, enough :See also Word stress § The letter e *as past tense of regular verbs finishing /t/ or /d/: accepted, arrested, awarded, loaded, offended, recorded, repeated, sorted, suggested, tempted, wanted As /iː/ or /ɪ/ As a final unstressed vowel. See also Pronunciation exercises: /ɪ/ vs /iː/ § Unstressed syllable and Decoding exercises: "é". * *abalone, aborigine, adobe, anemone, Apache, apocope, epitome, Comanche, guacamole, hyperbole, simile, syncope, tamale *Chile, Gethsemane, Jesse, Yosemite *Female Greek names: Antigone /ænˈtɪgəniː/, Aphrodite /ˌæfrəˈdaɪtiː/, Ariadne /ˌæriːˈædniː/, Berenice /ˌb rəˈnaɪsiː/, Calliope /kəˈlaɪəpiː/, Chloe /ˈkləʊiː/, Circe /ˈsɜːrsiː/, Daphne /ˈdæfniː/, Eurydice /jʊˈrɪdəsiː/, Euterpe /juːˈtɜːrpiː/, Hebe /ˈhiːbiː/, Hermione /hɜːrˈmaɪəniː/, Irene /aɪˈriːniː/, Melpomene /m lˈpɒməniː/, Mnemosyne /niˈmɒsəni, niˈmɒzəni/, Nike /ˈnaɪkiː/, Penelope /pəˈn ləpiː/, Persephone /pərˈs fəniː/, Phoebe /ˈfiːbiː/, Selene /sɪˈliːniː/, Terpsichore /tɜrpˈsɪkəriː/, Zoe /ˈzəʊiː/ As schwa See main article schwa. See also "er" below :*at end: business, current, different, eleven, even, government, happen, investment, interest, item, level, listen, model, moment, often, open, parent, president, problem, recent, seven, statement, student, system, travel Spelling anomaly *As /eɪ/: carburetor Words of French origin *As /ɒ/: '''e'ntrepreneur *As /eɪ/: café, fiancé, resumé :See also Decoding exercises: "é" *As /eɪ/ or /ɪ/: 'e'lite Silent e Silent final e See main article Silent e. In addition to magic e (next section) we have examples like dance, horse, giraffe, little and have. Magic e The pattern VCe#, where V is any vowel, C is any consonant and # is the end of the word, is known as magic e. Magic e is silent but not redundant, as these examples show: */æ/ - /eɪ/: rat - rate; /ɑː/ - / /: car - care; */ / - /iː/: get - scene; /ɜː/ - /ɪə/: her - here; */ɪ/ - /aɪ/: quit - quite; /ɜː/ - /aɪə/: sir - fire */ɒ/ - /əʊ/: hop - hope; /ɔː/ - /ɔː/: north - more */ʌ/ - /juː/: tub - tube; /ɜː/ - /jʊə/: fur - cure Many compound words and words with suffixes have a silent e in the middle of the word *careless, extrem'e'''ly, evening, fireproof, forecast, lively, moreover, pipeline, precisely, rarely, safety, shareholder, statement Past tense of regular verbs ''See main article Past tense pronunciation. *grabbed, liked, played, trapped Other *"er" as /r/: different, interest, preference, several *improvement, lovely, movement, relatively, somebody, something, sometimes, vineyard See also Varisyllabic words. Combinations ea See main article Decoding exercises: "ea". * [[IPA phoneme \iː\|as '''/iː/]]: * [[IPA phoneme \ \|as / /]]: ;ear * [[IPA phoneme \ɪə\|as /ɪə/]]: clear, dear, ear, fear, hear, near * [[IPA phoneme \ ə\|as / ə/]]: bear, wear * [[IPA phoneme \ɜː\|as /ɜː/]]: early, earn, earth, heard, hearse, learn, pearl, rehearsal, rehearse, search ee See main article IPA phoneme /iː/. */iː/ agree, between, breed, breeze, deep, eel, fee, feel, free, greed, green, guarantee, knee, leek, meek, meet, need, reed, see, seed, seek, sleek, steel, steep, tee, teeth, tree, weed, week */iː/ or /ɪ/. See Pronunciation exercises: /ɪ/ vs /iː/ § Word_final: coffee, commitee "ee" is a very reliable spelling pattern. Probably the only exception is the word "been". *been /biːn , bɪn / ;eer */ɪə/: career, deer, engineer, peer */iːə/: freer ei See main article Decoding exercises: "ei" ey See main article Decoding exercises: "ey" eu See main article Decoding exercises: "eu". *As /juː/: eucalyptus, euphoria *As /juː/ or /uː/: neuter, neutral *As /iːə/: museum ;eur *As /jʊə/: euro, Europe, European *As /jʊə/ or /ʊə/: neuron *As /ə/: amateur ew See main article IPA phoneme /uː/. *As /uː/: brew, chew, crew, jewel, screw :Past tense: blew, drew, flew, grew, threw *As /juː/ or /uː/: knew, new, stew *As /juː/: few, nephew *Anomalies: as /əʊ/: sew, sewn er Main article: Decoding exercises: "er" */ɜː/: defer, fern, her, herd, person, prefer, sperm, stern, term, tern, were */ə/: butter, ever, never, summer, teacher, water, weather ;ere */ɪə/: here, mere, severe, sphere */ ə/: there, where ;err */ /: deterrent, error, Jerry, territory, terrorist */ɜː/: deferred, deferring, deterrent, preferred, preferring Other */aɪ/: eye *"eo" :Main article: Decoding exercises: "eo" :*/iː/: people :*/ /: jeopardise, jeopardize, leopard :*/ɪ/ or /ə/: pigeon :*/ə/: surgeon :Two syllables: :*/iːɒ/: neon :*/iːəʊ/: rodeo, Romeo, stereo, video Homophones See main article Homophone. *blew - blue; hear - here; he'd - heed; heel - he'll; leak - leek; meat - meet; read (present) - reed (tall grass-like plant from wet places); read (past) - red; sea - see - C; steal - steel; tern (bird similar to a gull) - turn; threw - through; weak - week; we'll - wheel; we'd - weed; Respellings Def Leppard, Deftones, Led Zeppelin, Megadeth Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1 Spanish Many Spanish speakers will try, instinctively, to pronounce it as /e/ which is very similar to the letter "e" in Spanish, forgetting that very often "e" sounds as /iː/. This is particularly true of cognates, such as previous (previo) pronounced as |Correct pronunciation is /ˈpriːviːəs/}}, region (región) pronounced as |Correct pronunciation is /ˈriːdʒən/}} or worse }}, or decent (decente) pronounced as |Correct pronunciation is /ˈdiːsənt/}}. The same situation arises when the sequence "er" is sounded For example, they tend to pronounce }} instead of (English "period", Spanish período or periodo). References See also *Decoding exercises: "é" *Decoding exercises: "er" *Decoding exercises: "err" *Decoding exercises: "erV" and "errV" *Decoding exercises: "ie" *Decoding exercises: "oe" *Decoding exercises: "ue" E E